Alejandro Jodorowsky’s
Dune is one of the most influential films never to exist.

That is the assertion of the highly entertaining documentary
Jodorowsky’s Dune, focusing on how the wild-man director of
El Topo dreamed of making a crazily ambitious version of Frank Herbert’s popular sci-fi
novel in the mid-1970s.

The film was intended to mimic a psychedelic experience, minus the drugs.

For the cast, Jodorowsky says, he received verbal commitments from Salvador Dali, Mick Jagger
and Orson Welles. Jodorowsky and his son, Brontis, would have played the leads, as they did in
El Topo.

Behind-the-scenes names included special-effects man Dan O’Bannon and artists Chris Foss and
H.R. Giger. Pink Floyd, enjoying the success of
The Dark Side of the Moon, agreed to do the music.

The result might well have been mind-boggling, although you might not realize how much so unless
you know Jodorowsky’s work, including
The Holy Mountain and
Santa Sangre. A true believer in expanding consciousness, the director made movies that
were strange even for the freewheeling 1960s and ’70s. They are bloody, sexual and surreal
allegories that won him a cult following.

In the documentary, directed by first-timer Frank Pavich, Jodorowsky regales with tales of what
might have been.

Jodorowsky and his
Dune collaborators might not have made a film, but they did produce one amazing artifact:
a massive book containing eye-popping designs for the movie’s space vessels and costumes, plus a
detailed storyboard of the plot. (Incidentally, the director hadn’t read the novel when he agreed
to make the film; it was to be more his vision than Herbert’s.) Jodorowsky’s book was used to shop
the project to Hollywood studios; the filmmakers were aiming for a $15 million budget.

The project had undeniable ripple effects. O’Bannon and Giger united for Ridley Scott’s
influential
Alien, for instance. The film contends that images from Jodorowsky’s
Dune were echoed in numerous later movies, including
Star Wars.

For all his fervor, Jodorowsky is a genial sort and willing to own up to some frailties. He
confesses that he was deeply wounded by the project’s collapse and even took delight in the failure
of David Lynch’s dreadful 1984 film of
Dune.